I have always desired to be a part of the music industry, and I wanted to be a part of the background, such as a writer, producer, or involved in the engineering process. I have always been fascinated by music making and what goes into making the lyrics you hear in your ears.

THE MUSIC INDUSTRY STARTED CHANGING from analog to digital when I graduated high school in the late 90s. All of life was changing from analog to digital. Having a physical disability, I thought because of my disability, being in that kind of industry with the skills I would need to use would require flexibility in my hands I don’t have. I never looked into what it would entail. 

I would never say I took the easy way out because of my disability, but I could have pushed some more when doing something in the music industry.

I thought about staring as a Discv jockey; from there, who knows where I could have gone? Due to my complications at birth and being put in the NICU, my mother used to say they would put music by me.

Music near me in the NICU was the first-way music empowered me, and music had a hand in keeping me alive.

Music was and still is a big part of my life. In my life, but it has also negatively affected my life. Other than the fact that music helped keep me alive from day one. There have been many other significant positives of empowerment that music has always brought me, and it has been a getaway if my disability is getting me down. There are many reasons why music is significant, but the most important to me is the freedom I feel from music—in a way, music makes me feel empowered. The flow of music gives me a flow I don’t usually have because my disability knows no flow. I can see in my mind that I can dance and flow as if I had the flow of an able body person.

 Seeing how I can flow in my mind with the music empowers me. It’s not so much the lyrics but more beats of the music and the rhythm of the music that makes the uneasiness of my impaired body feel as if it’s free to move in more of a natural state: at least in my mind.

As a kid, I would have my Walkman on more than listening to nature. I would sit in my room or out in my backyard and lose myself in the music to dream of freedom from my disability. Each time I got lost in the music, I would get lost in my mind and not have any disability. As much as it was my favorite thing to do, getting lost in my mind to the music, it was also hard for me to return to reality. 

I would get sucked into the music so hardcore that when I would take my earphones out, my mind was lost in the dreamland I made for myself. 

I lost so much of my time because of the empowerment of music that; music became a drug for me. It was as if I had to be lost in the empowerment to live because I didn’t want to live life that brought so many challenges. I never realized that being lost in the empowerment of music made it more challenging, just in a different way. The empowerment of music and the challenges of understanding the life that I was born with and the life of the world I made was ultimately two different worlds. 

As I’m sitting here, writing about the empowerment of music and the fantasy land I made for myself, I cry inside, remembering the freedom that my fantasy gave me but also remembering the challenges the fantasy land gave me. Due to the fantasy land, I made up, I lost so much real-time, real adventures, living in the moment but mostly real life. 

Even now, as an independent adult living independently, I limit my time listening to music. I also make sure I have a broader range of music because if I stick with one genre of music, I will get stuck in my head and start to make a living in my mind again and go down an unhealthy path. 

Music has always been and will be a big part of my life, but I also understand that I can’t let music run my life.